A diplomatic row broke out between London and Rome on Friday over Britain's failure to inform the Italian government before launching a botched hostage rescue mission in Nigeria. The raid resulted in the deaths of a Briton and an Italian held hostage by a militant Islamist group. Chris McManus and Italian Franco Lamolinara had been kidnapped last May while working for a construction company in north-west Nigeria.
British Prime Minister David Cameron said they were killed by their captors in a rescue mission involving Nigerian and British special forces. President Giorgio Napolitano led a chorus of Italian condemnation on Friday, saying: "The behaviour of the British government in not informing Italy is inexplicable." "A political and diplomatic clarification is necessary."
British Defence Secretary Philip Hammond told the BBC that there was a narrow window of opportunity to try to free the hostages because intelligence showed that they were about to be moved and possibly executed. "It's very unfortunate, but it's completely explicable." Asked whether the Italians had approved the operation, Hammond said: " T hey were informed of it. I don't think they specifically approved it, they were informed of what was happening. "
Prime Minister Mario Monti said Italy had been informed only after the raid began against a compound in the town of Sokoto. The British government confirmed this on Friday. "Italy wasn't informed or asked its opinion about a blitz that put at mortal risk an Italian citizen," Fabrizio Cicchitto, a senior official in former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's People of Liberty party, said in a television interview.